Buhari: Beware, the friends of the president

To one class of people, a friend in government is a friend lost. That happens when you ascribe to friendship elements of service and loyalty. To another class of people, a friend in government is a resource material. This second category is made up of those who readily produce business cards tagged “friends of the Governor” or “friends of the President.” They are the bootlickers, the praise singers and the yes men. They are ubiquitous around power. They are the men of power, who readily showcase multi-level layers of competence before the man in power. They are not what they are.

Around our President, Muhammadu Buhari, the second category of friends, who I also call the Iagos are in good number. They readily defend every wrong step of the man in power and proffer countless reasons why the President is always right. They laugh loudest, when the President’s jokes strike no particular cord and jump at anything just to please the man in power.

William Shakespeare, in the classic eponymous play Othello, defines the friends around power through the character Iago, one of the closest aides of the warrior and Commander, Othello. Iago readily throws himself at the Commander and does everything to near perfection despite nursing a secret grudge against his leader. Prodded by his colleagues, aides of Othello, Iago bares it all in these lines:

Were I the Moor (Othello) I would not be Iago.

In following him I follow but myself;

Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,

But seeming so for my peculiar end.

For when my outward action doth demonstrate

The native act and figure of my heart

In compliment extern, ’tis not long after

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve

For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.

In those lines, Iago explains to his colleague Roderigo that in following the boss, he was merely following for a particular end. He is not one aide for love and duty. He is one to exploit the Master for pecuniary gains. He is one who cannot demonstrate outwardly his real inner feelings, as that would amount to foolishness. To him, such a day will not come because he readily wears his heart upon his sleeve.

The boss, Othello was unable to see through the Iago machinations and his downfall was foretold. The tragedy was complete. Such is the tragedy of leaders who trust the aide that don’t trust them; the aide given to particular ends.

Today’s power houses are full of Iagos, who supervises the activities of their bosses with innermost contempt they will never wear on the face. They mislead the boss for pecuniary gains. They jump out of sight as soon as tragedy befalls the boss.

For President Muhammadu Buhari, the Iagos are plentiful, leading him to what the revered playwright and Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka called “unforced errors.”

It is the Iagos that would lead a President to hold the legislature in contempt and refuse to seek approval for the purchase of $496 million (about N151 billion) worth aircraft, whereas the National Assembly was in session when the payment was being processed. It is the Iagos that will refrain from informing the leader to catch in on the opportunity to activate emergency sittings of the legislature if that was required. It is the Iagos that will tell a boss since you are spending the money on National security, your explanations will subsist at the end of the day.

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The same Iago will not remind himself that Dasuki, Sambo, a retired Colonel of the Nigerian Army, one of the Advisers to a previous boss is languishing in detention over the mode of disbursement of money denominated as “Security funds.”

The Iagos will also not tell the President that impeachable offences in accordance with Section 143 of the 1999 Constitution are as defined by the parliament and that any infraction to the Constitution, no matter the intent of the offender, amounts to impeachable offence.

The Iagos around the President are those who will advise his to head towards Bauchi, on a campaign drive, when Benue state was burning. The same Iagos would tell him to drag the Chief Policeman along on the Bauchi campaign train when he should have helped the President by making a stopover in the troubled Benue. It does not matter to the friends of the President that Benue land in Nigeria has in recent days replicated modern scenes of the drama, Murder in the Cathedral over and over again. The Iagos and friends of the President are the advisers who will tell the President it doesn’t matter if the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheik El-Zakzaky is detained in perpetuity despite court orders to the contrary; they will advise, it is better to keep the man out of circulation, despite opportunity to complete his trial all along.

The Iagos and friends of the President would readily advise the security agencies to commence the Senator Dino Melaye dance steps, even when murderers are daily killing Christians while performing early morning mass in Benue.

The friends of the President and the Iagos in his life would also be quick to advise him to keep permitting the NNPC to continue to deep hands into the till; pay unappropriated subsidy claims and deplete earnings of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC); leading to aborted FAAC meetings.

It does not matter to the Iagos and the friends of the President that the Constitution, in the name of checks and balances has given the power of the pause to a particular arm of government.

The advice for Buhari cannot therefore be farfetched; to avoid the tragedy of Othello, avoid the Iagos and the friends of power.